Issue 17: Does True Altruism Exist?
YES: C. Daniel Batson, Bruce D. Duncan, Paula Ackerman,
Terese Buckley, and Kimberly Birch, from “Is Empathic Emotion
a Source of Altruistic Motivation?” Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology (February 1981)
NO: Robert B. Cialdini, Mark Schaller, Donald Houlihan, Kevin
Arps, Jim Fultz, and Arthur L. Beaman, from “Empathy-Based
Helping: Is It Selfl essly or Selfi shly Motivated?” Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology (April 1987)
ISSUE SUMMARY
YES: Social psychologist C. Daniel Batson and his colleagues believe
that people sometimes help for purely altruistic reasons. He proposes
that empathy is the key factor responsible for altruism and
describes the results of an experiment that supports his position.
NO: Social psychologist Robert Cialdini and his colleagues are not
convinced that empathy alone can motivate helping. Instead they
propose that people often help others in order to make themselves
feel better.
Do people ever behave selfl essly? Is it possible that we help simply out
of genuine concern for another person’s welfare and nothing else? These
are
fundamental questions for social psychologists who study altruism. Altruism
can be defi ned as an unselfi sh interest in helping others. At fi rst glance, it
may
seem as if altruistic behavior is commonplace—philanthropists donate to
charities,
public safety workers risk their lives on a daily basis, and everyday people
often lend a helping hand to others for no apparent ulterior motive.
However,
if we look more closely at helping, it becomes evident that there may be
other
factors, besides a concern for the welfare of others, that may motivate
helping.
For example, philanthropists who donate money to a charity are likely to
feel
good about themselves after making their donation. If these positive
feelings
were the primary factor that motivated the donation—the person donated
the
money to feel good—then this act of charity could not be considered truly
altruistic. It would be considered an egoistic act because it was ultimately
aimed
at improving the welfare of the person giving the help rather than the
person
ISSUE 17
377
receiving help, even if the donation had positive con sequences for others.
But how can we tell if it is altruism or more self-cen tered motives that are
responsible for helping? When helping occurs in the real world, it can be
diffi cult to ascertain the true motivation of those who provide help. A social
psychology
laboratory is likely to be a more promising place to determine whether true
altruism exists; in the laboratory the causes of helping behavior can be
isolated
and systematically studied.
In the fi rst selection, Daniel Batson and his colleagues propose that
empathy plays a key role in altruistic behavior. Empathy is the ability to
experience
someone else’s feelings by imagining what it would feel like to be in the
same situation as another person. According to Batson, when we feel
empathy
for another person we become genuinely concerned for their well-being
and
are more likely to help for altruistic reasons. Batson will describe a
laboratory
experiment designed to test this hypothesis.
Robert Cialdini and his colleagues propose a different model to explain
helping behavior, which they call the Negative State Relief Model.
According
to this model, people help others in order to avoid the negative feelings that
they might experience if they did not help. Imagine that you are witnessing
someone suffering. How would it make you feel to watch them suffer? It
would
probably bother you and make you feel personally distressed. Accord ing to
Cialdini, you would be likely to take action to reduce this person’s suf fering
in
order to reduce the distress that you were currently experiencing. If this
were
your motivation for helping then it would not be altruism, because the
ultimate
goal of your behavior would be to increase your own welfare. So according
to this perspective, we often help in order to avoid negative conse quences
for
ourselves—such as the feelings of sadness that would result if we did not
help.
It should be noted that the two selections you will read were only the
ini tial exchange in a series of articles that have debated the existence of
altruism.
In response to Cialdini’s Negative State Relief Model, Batson has produced
additional research that he believes demonstrates the existence of true
altruism.
Despite Batson’s efforts, the debate over altruism continues to this day.
POINT
• We sometimes help others for altruistic
reasons.
• Altruistic helping is a result of em pathic feelings for others.
• Experimental evidence supports the
importance of empathy in generating
altruistic helping behavior.
COUNTERPOINT
• Other motivations besides altruism
can explain helping behavior.
• We may help others to reduce our
own distress rather than to reduce the
distress of others.
• Experimental evidence has not conclusively
demonstrated that people
help for purely altruistic reasons.
378
C. Daniel Batson, Bruce D. Duncan,
Paula Ackerman, Terese Buckley,
and Kimberly Birch
Is Empathic Emotion a Source of
Altruistic Motivation?
Evidence indicates that feeling empathy for the person in need is an
important
motivator of helping (cf. Aderman & Berkowitz, 1970; Aronfreed & Paskal,
cited in Aronfreed, 1970; Coke , Batson, & McDavis, 1978; Harris & Huang,
1973; Krebs, 1975; Mehrabian & Epstein, 1972). In the past few years, a
number
of researchers (Aronfreed, 1970; Batson, Darley, & Coke, 1978; Hoffman,
1975;
Krebs, 1975) have hypothesized that this motivation might be truly
altruistic,
that is, directed toward the end-state goal of reducing the other’s distress. If
the
empathy-altruism hypothesis is correct, it would have broad theoretical
implications,
for few if any major theories of motivation allow for the possibility
of truly altruistic motivation (cf. Bolles, 1975, for a review). Current theories
tend to be egoistic; they are built on the assumption that everything we do
is
ultimately directed toward the end-state goal of benefi ting ourselves.
The egoistic orientation of modern psychology should not be dismissed
lightly; it has prevailed for decades, and it can easily account for what might
appear to be altruistic motivation arising from empathic emotion. To
illustrate:
You may answer the question of why you helped someone in otherdirected,
altruistic terms—you felt sorry for that person and wished to reduce his or
her distress. But this apparently altruistic concern to reduce another’s
distress
may not have been the end-state goal of your action but rather an
intermediate
means to the ultimate end of reducing your own distress. Your own distress
could have arisen not only from the unpleasant emotions you experienced
as
a result of knowing that the other person was suffering (shock, disgust,
fear, or
grief) but from the increase in unpleasant emotion you anticipated if you did
not help (guilt or shame). Interpreted in this way, your helping was not
altruistic.
It was an instrumental egoistic response. You acted to reduce the other
per son’s distress because that reduced your own distress.
If we allow that apparently altruistic helping may be no more than an
instrumental egoistic response, and we believe that we must, then there is
no
clear empirical evidence that empathic emotion leads to altruistic motivation
to help. The diffi culty in providing evidence is, of course, that egoism and
altruism are motivational concepts, and we cannot directly observe
motivation,
only behavior. If we are to provide empirical evidence that empathic
From Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 40, no. 2, February
1981, pp. 290–302.
Copyright © 1981 by American Psychological Association. Reprinted by
permission via
Rightslink.
YES
YES / C. Daniel Batson et al. 379
emotion leads to altruistic motivation, we need to identify some point at
which the egoistic and altruistic interpretations differ at a behavioral level.
If no such point can be found, then we must conclude that the claim that
empa thy evokes altruistic motivation is of no real theoretical signifi cance.
Conceptual Distinction between Egoism and
Altruism
In an attempt to fi nd a point of behavioral difference, it is important, fi rst, to
be clear about the points of conceptual difference. Therefore, let us be
explicit
about what we mean by egoistic and altruistic motivation for helping. As we
shall
use the terms, a person’s helping is egoistic to the degree that he or she
helps
from a desire for personal gain (e.g., material rewards, praise, or selfesteem) or a
desire to avoid personal pain (e.g., punishment, social castigation, private
guilt,
or shame). That is, egoistically motivated helping is directed toward the
end-state goal
of increasing the helper’s own welfare. In contrast, a person’s helping is
altruistic to
the degree that he or she helps from a desire to reduce the distress or
increase
the benefi t of the person in need. That is, altruistically motivated helping is
directed
toward the end-state goal of increasing the other’s welfare.
This conceptual distinction between egoism and altruism leads to three
observations: (a) Helping, as a behavior, can be either egoistically or
altruistically
motivated; it is the end-state goal, not the behavior, that distinguishes an
act as altruistic. (b) Motivation for helping may be a mixture of altruism and
egoism; it need not be solely or even primarily altruistic to have an altruistic
component. (c) Increasing the other’s welfare is both necessary and suffi
cient
to attain an altruistic end-state goal. To the degree that helping is
altruistically
rather than egoistically motivated, increasing the other’s welfare is not
an intermediate, instrumental response directed toward increasing one’s
own
welfare; it is an end in itself. Although one’s own welfare may be increased
by
altruistically motivated helping (for example, it may produce feelings of
personal
satisfaction or relief), personal gain must be an unintended by-product
and not the goal of the behavior. This conception of altruism and of the
distinction
between it and egoism seem quite consistent not only with Auguste
Comte’s (1875) initial use of the term but also with modern dictionary defi
nitions,
for example, “unselfi sh concern for the welfare of others.”
Empirical Distinction between Egoism and
Altruism
Equipped with this conceptual distinction, we may turn to the problem of
making an empirical distinction between egoistic and altruistic motivation
for
helping. As we have said, all we can directly observe is the behavior, help
ing.
The challenge is somehow to use the behavior as a basis for inferring
whether
the motivation underlying it is egoistic or altruistic.
Batson and Coke (1981) have recently proposed a technique for doing
this. Building on the work of Piliavin and Piliavin (1973), they point out that
380 ISSUE 17 / Does True Altruism Exist?
the effect on helping of a cost variable—the cost of escaping from the need
situation without helping—should be different, depending on whether the
bystander’s motivation is egoistic or altruistic. If the bystander’s motivation
is egoistic, his or her goal is to reduce personal distress caused by seeing
the
other suffer. This goal can be reached either by helping, and so removing
the
cause of one’s distress, or by escaping (phys ically or psychologically) and
so
removing contact with the cause; either behavior can lead to the desired
goal.
The likelihood that the egoistically motivated bystander will choose to help
should, therefore, be a direct function of the costs associated with choosing
to escape. These costs include the physical effort involved in escaping from
the need situation (often minimal) and, more importantly, the feelings of
distress,
guilt, and shame anticipated as a result of knowing that the per son in
need is continuing to suffer. Thus, if the bystander were egoistically moti
vated
and all other variables were held constant, increasing the cost of escaping
by,
for example, preventing the bystander from leaving the scene of the
accident
and so making it hard to avoid thinking about the continuing distress of the
unhelped vic tim should increase the rate of helping. Conversely, reducing
the
costs of escaping by, for example, making it easy for the bystander to leave
the
scene of the accident and thus avoid thinking about the victim’s continuing
distress should decrease the rate of helping.
If the bystander’s motivation is altruistic, his or her goal is to reduce
the other’s distress. This goal can be reached by helping, but not by
escaping.
Therefore, the likelihood that the altruistically motivated bystander will help
should be independent of the cost of escaping because escaping is a goalirrelevant
behavior. Increasing or decreasing the cost of escaping should have no
effect on the rate of helping; the rate should remain as high when escape is
easy as when it is diffi cult.
These predictions suggest a way of determining whether the motivation
for helping is egoistic or altruistic. The motivation cannot be inferred from
any single behavioral response, but it can be inferred from the pattern of
helping
responses presented in Table 1. To the extent that the motivation for
helping
is egoistic, the helping rate should be affected by the diffi culty of escaping.
The easier it is to escape continued exposure to the need situation, the
lower
the cost of escaping and the less chance of a bystander’s helping. But to
the
Table 1
Rate of Helping When Diffi culty of Escape Is Varied and
Motivation Is Egoistic or Altruistic
Type of motivation (level of empathic emotion)
Diffi culty of escape Egoistic (low empathy) Altruistic (high empathy)
Easy Low High
Diffi cult High High
YES / C. Daniel Batson et al. 381
extent that the motivation for helping is altruistic, the helping rate should be
unaffected by the diffi culty of escaping; helping should be just as high
when
escape is easy as when it is diffi cult.1
Application to the Problem of the Motivation
Resulting From Empathic Emotion
Now let us apply this general technique for discriminating between egoistic
and altruistic motivation to the specifi c question of whether empathic
emotion
leads to altruistic motivation to help. If the motivation associated with
feeling empathy for the person in need is altruistic (the empathy–altruism
hypothesis), individuals induced to feel a high degree of empathy should
help
regardless of whether escape is easy or diffi cult (column 2 of Table 1);
individuals
feeling little empathy should help only when escape is diffi cult (column 1).
Thus, if empathy leads to altruistic motivation to help, one can relabel the
columns
in Table 1, as has been done in parentheses. If, however, the motiva tion
to help resulting from empathic emotion is egoistic, as seems to be implied
by
those who speak of “empathic pain,” helping in the high-empathy condition
should be affected by the ease of escape. Then we would expect to
observe
two main effects: As in previous research, high empathy should lead to
more
helping than low empathy, presumably as a result of an increase in feelings
of
personal distress or in anticipated guilt or shame. And in each empathy
condition
diffi cult escape should lead to more helping than easy escape.
Note that the entire one-versus-three interaction pattern depicted in
Table 1 is important if one is to provide evidence for the empathy–altruism
hypothesis. If, for example, one were to compare the easy and diffi cult
escape
cells only in the column marked altruistic motivation (high empathy), the
altruistic prediction is for no difference in the rate of helping. Such a result
could easily occur simply because the escape manipulation was too weak
or
the behavioral measure was insensitive. If, however, an escape
manipulation
has a signifi cant effect on helping when a bystander feels little empathy
but
does not when a bystander feels much empathy, the evidence that
empathic
emotion evokes altruistic motivation is much stronger. Then the evidence
cannot
be dismissed as being the result of a weak escape manipulation or an
insensitive
measure.
It is also clear that one must be on guard for a possible ceiling effect. A
ceiling effect in the high-empathy column could obscure the two-main-effect
pattern that would be expected if the motivation were egoistic, making it
look
like the one-versus-three interaction that would be expected if the
motivation
were altruistic.
Present Research
We conducted two experiments to test the hypothesis that empathic
emotion
leads to altruistic motivation to help. As suggested by the preceding
analysis,
a 2 _ 2 design was used in each. Subjects observed a young woman
named
Elaine receiv ing electric shocks; they were given an unanticipated chance
to
382 ISSUE 17 / Does True Altruism Exist?
help her by vol unteering to take the remaining shocks in her stead. Cost of
escaping without helping was manipulated by making escape either easy or
diffi cult. Subjects believed that if they did not take Elaine’s place, either
they
would continue to observe her take the shocks (diffi cult escape condition)
or they would not (easy escape condition). Level of empathic emotion (low
versus high) was manipulated differently in the two experiments. Following
the classic studies of Stotland (1969) and Krebs (1975), in Experiment 1 we
used similarity information to manipulate empathy. In Experiment 2 we
sought to manipulate empathy more directly through the use of an a
emotionspecifi
c misattribution to a placebo. In both experiments, the empathy–
altruism hypothesis predicted that helping responses would conform to the
one-versus-three pattern depicted in Table 1.
Experiment 1
There is evidence (e.g., Hornstein, 1976; Krebs, 1975; Stotland, 1969) that
people
are more likely to identify with a person they perceive to be similar to
themselves and, as a result, to feel more empathy for a similar than for a
dissimilar
other. In the clearest demonstration of this relationship, Krebs (1975)
manipulated male subjects’ perceptions of their similarity to a young man
(an
experimental confederate) prior to having them watch him perform in a
roulette
game in which he received money if the ball landed on an even number
and an electric shock if the ball landed on an odd number. Similarity was
manipulated by telling subjects that their responses to a personality test
completed
several days earlier indicated that they and the performer were either
similar or different. In addition, subjects received information suggesting
that
the performer’s values and interests were either similar or different from
their
own. Compared with subjects in the dissimilar condition, subjects who
perceived
themselves to be similar to the performer showed greater physiological
arousal in response to his pleasure and pain, reported identifying with him
to
a greater degree, and reported feeling worse while waiting for him to
receive
shock. These subjects also subsequently helped him more. But it was not
clear
whether the motivation to help was egoistic or altruistic. To clarify this
issue,
we used a procedure similar to Krebs’s but varied perceived similarity and
dif fi culty of escape in a 2 _ 2 factorial design.
Method
Subjects. Subjects were 44 female introductory psychology students at the
University of Kansas participating in partial fulfi llment of a course
requirement.
They were randomly selected from those who had completed a personal
value and inter est questionnaire, which formed the basis for the similarity
manipulation, at a screening session held a few weeks earlier. Subjects
were
assigned to the four conditions of the 2 (easy versus diffi cult escape) _ 2
(similar
versus dissimilar victim) design through the use of a randomized block
procedure, 11 subjects to each cell. Four additional participants, one from
each
cell, were excluded from the design because they suspected Elaine was
not
actually receiving shocks.
YES / C. Daniel Batson et al. 383
Procedure. On arrival, subjects were told that they would have to wait a
few
minutes for the arrival of a second subject, Elaine (actually a confederate).
They were given an introduction to read while waiting:
In this experiment we are studying task performance and impression
pro jection under stressful conditions. We are investigating, as well,
whether any ineffi ciency that might result from working under aversive
conditions increases proportionately with the amount of time
spent working under such conditions.
Since this study requires the assistance of two participants, there
will be a drawing to determine which role will be yours. One participant
will perform a task (consisting of up to, but not more than, ten
trials) under aversive conditions; the aversive conditions will be created
by the presenta tion of electric shock at random intervals during the
work period. The other participant will observe the individual working
under aversive conditions, This role involves the formation and report
of general attitudes towards the “worker” so that we may better assess
what effect, if any, working under aversive conditions has upon how
that individual is perceived.
After reading the introduction and signing a consent form, subjects drew
lots for
their role. The drawing was rigged so that they always drew the observer
role.
Subjects were then escorted to the observation room and given more
detailed instructions. They learned that they would not actually meet the
worker but would instead observe her over closed-circuit television as she
performed up to 10 2-min, digit-recall trials. At random intervals during each
trial, the worker would receive moderately uncomfortable electric shocks.
The instructions went on to explain that equipment limitations made it
impossible to capture visually all of the worker’s reactions and that this was
a problem, since prior research sug gested that nonverbal cues were
important
in assessing another person’s emo tional state. To compensate for this
lost information, the worker would be connected to a galvanic skin
response
(GSR) monitor, which would be visible in the lower right-hand corner of the
television screen. The level of arousal indicated on the monitor would
enable
the subjects to assess more accurately the worker’s emotional response,
and
help them form an impression.
Diffi culty of escape manipulation. To manipulate diffi culty of escape
without
helping, the last line of the detailed instructions varied the number of
tri als that subjects expected to observe. In the easy-escape condition,
subjects
read: “Although the worker will be completing between two and ten trials, it
will be necessary for you to observe only the fi rst two.” In the diffi cult
escape
condition they read: “The worker will be completing between two and ten
trials,
all of which you will observe.” All subjects were later to learn that Elaine
agreed to complete all 10 trials, and they were given the chance to help her
by trading places after the second trial. Therefore, in the easy-escape
condition,
subjects who did not help would not have to watch Elaine take any more
shocks; in the diffi cult-escape condition they would.
384 ISSUE 17 / Does True Altruism Exist?
Similarity manipulation. After the subject fi nished reading the detailed
instructions, the experimenter handed her a copy of the personal values
and
interest questionnaire administered at the screening session, explaining
that
this copy had been fi lled out by Elaine and would provide information
about
her that might be of help in forming an impression. Elaine’s questionnaire
was prepared in advance so that it refl ected values and interests that were
either very similar or very dissimilar to those the subject had expressed on
her question naire. In the similar-victim condition, Elaine’s responses to six
items that had only two possible answers (e.g., “If you had a choice, would
you prefer living in a rural or an urban setting?”) were identical to those the
subject had given; her responses to the other eight items were similar but
not
identical (e.g., “What is your favorite magazine?” Answers: Cosmopolitan
for
the subject, Seventeen for Elaine; Time for the subject, Newsweek for
Elaine). In
the dissimilar-victim con dition, Elaine’s responses to the six two-answer
items
were the opposite of those the subject had given, and her responses to the
other eight were clearly different (e.g., Cosmopolitan for the subject,
Newsweek
for Elaine). . . .
While the subject looked over Elaine’s questionnaire, the experimenter
left to see if Elaine had arrived. She returned to say that she had and that
the
subject could now begin observing her over the closed-circuit television. So
saying, the experimenter turned on a video monitor, allowing the subject to
see Elaine. Unknown to the subject, what she saw was actually a
videotape.
Need situation. On the videotape, subjects fi rst saw Elaine, a moderately
attractive
young woman, tell the research assistant (female) that she would complete
all 10 of the digit-recall trials. As the assistant was going over the
procedure,
Elaine interrupted to ask about the nature of the electric shocks that were
to be
used. The assistant answered that the shocks would be of constant
intensity and,
although uncomfortable, would cause “no permanent damage.” “You know
if
you scuff your feet walking across a carpet and touch something metal?
Well,
they’ll be about two to three times more uncomfortable than that.”
After GSR electrodes were attached to the fi rst and third fi ngers on
Elaine’s
nondominant hand and a shock electrode was attached to her other arm,
the
digit-recall trials began. The experimenter left subjects alone at this point.
As
the fi rst trial progressed, Elaine’s facial expressions, body movement, and
the
GSR monitor all indicated that she was fi nding the shocks extremely
unpleasant.
By midway through the second trial, her reactions were so strong that
the assis tant interrupted the procedure to ask if Elaine were all right.
Elaine
answered that she was but would appreciate having a glass of water. The
assistant
readily agreed to this request and went to get the water. . . .
Returning with the glass of water, the assistant asked Elaine if she had
ever had trouble with shocks before. Elaine confessed that she had—as a
child
she had been thrown from a horse onto an electric fence. The doctor had
said at the time that she suffered a bad trauma and in the future might react
strongly to even mild shocks. (This information was provided to ensure that
subjects would view Elaine’s extreme reaction to the shocks as atypical
and
would not expect to fi nd the shocks as unpleasant if they chose to take her
YES / C. Daniel Batson et al. 385
place.) Hearing this, the assistant said that she did not think Elaine should
continue with the trials. Elaine replied that even though she found the
shocks
very unpleasant, she wanted to go on: “I started; I want to fi nish. I’ll go on
… I know your experiment is important, and I want to do it.” At this point,
the assistant hit upon an idea: Since the observer was also an introduc tory
psychology student, maybe she would be willing to help Elaine out by
trading
places. Elaine readily consented to the assistant checking about this
possibility.
The assistant said that she would shut off the equipment and go talk with
the
experi menter about it. Shortly thereafter, the video screen went blank.
Dependent measure: Helping Elaine. About 30 sec later, the
experimenter
entered the observation room and said:
First of all, let me say that you’re under no obligation to trade places. I
mean, if you would like to continue in your role as observer that’s fi ne;
you did happen to draw the observer role. If you decide to continue as
the observer, ([easy-escape condition] you’ve fi nished observing the two
trials, so all you need to do is answer a few questions about your
impression
of Elaine and you’ll be free to go) ([diffi cult-escape condition] I
need you to observe Elaine’s remaining trials. After you’ve done that
and answered a few questions about your impression of Elaine, you’ll be
free to go). If you decide to change places with Elaine, what will happen
is that she’ll come in here and observe you, and you’ll do the aversive
conditioning trials with the shocks. And then you’ll be free to go.
What would you like to do? [Experimenter gets response from
sub ject.] OK, that’s fi ne. [If subject says she wants to trade places with
Elaine, the experimenter continues.] How many trials would you like to
do? Elaine will go ahead and do any of the eight remaining trials that
you don’t want to do. [Experimenter gets response.] Fine.
The experimenter then left, ostensibly to go tell the assistant what had
been
decided. In fact, she recorded whether the subject wanted to trade places
and,
if so, how many of the eight remaining trials she would do. This information
provided the dependent measure of helping. Then the experimenter made
herself
aware of the subject’s similarity condition.
Debriefi ng. The experimenter returned promptly and fully debriefed the
subject.
Subjects seemed readily to understand the necessity for the deception
involved in the experiment, and none seemed upset by it. After debriefi ng,
subjects were thanked for their participation and excused.
Results and Discussion
Relieving Elaine’s Distress by Helping. The proportion of subjects in
each
experimental condition who offered to help Elaine by trading places is
presented
in Table 2. . . . The 2 _ 2 analysis revealed a highly signifi cant main
effect for similarity, 2(1) _ 11.69, p _ .001 qualifi ed by a signifi cant
Escape
_ Similarity interaction, 2(l) _ 4.19, p _ .04. The main effect for diffi culty of
escape did not approach signifi cance, 2(l) _ 1.34, p _ .20.
386 ISSUE 17 / Does True Altruism Exist?
Inspection of the proportion of helping each condition revealed that the
interaction, was of the form predicted by the empathy–altruism hypothesis;
the proportion in the easy-escape–dissimilar–victim condition was much
lower
than in the other three conditions. To test the statistical signifi cance of this
predicted one-versus-three pattern, the rate of helping in this condition was
contrasted with the rate in the other three conditions. This planned com
parison
revealed a highly signifi cant difference, 2(1) _ 14.62, p _ .001. . . . Indi
vidual
cell comparisons revealed that, as predicted, the proportion of helping in
the
easy-escape–dissimilar-victim condition was signifi cantly lower than the
proportion
in each of the other three conditions (zs ranging from 2.27 to 3.87, all
ps _ .015, one-tailed). Comparisons among the other three conditions
revealed
no reliable differences (all zs _ 1.60).
With one exception, an identical pattern of signifi cant effects emerged
from analysis of variance and planned comparisons one the number of
shock
trials subjects in each condition volunteered to take for Elaine. The one
exception
was that the number of trials was signifi cantly lower in the two diffi
cultescape
conditions (pooled) than in the easy-escape–similar-victim condition,
t(40) _ 2.25, p _ .03, two-tailed.
These results were quite consistent with the empathy–altruism hypothesis;
they were not consistent with the view that empathy simply increases
egoistic
motivation to help. In the dissimilar-victim condition, where empathic
emotional response to Elaine’s distress was expected to be relatively low
and
according to the empathy–altruism hypothesis, the motivation to help was
expected to be primarily egoistic, the diffi culty of escape manipulation had
a dramatic effect on helping. When escape was easy, subjects were not
likely
to help, presumably because a less costly way to reduce any personal
distress
caused by watching Elaine receive shock was to answer the experimenter’s
fi nal questions and leave. When escape was diffi cult, subjects were likely
to
help, presumably because taking the remaining shocks themselves was
less
costly than sitting and watching Elaine take more.
Table 2
Proportion of Subjects Agreeing to Trade Places with Elaine in Each
Condition of Experiment 1
Similarity condition
Dissimilar victim Similar victim
Diffi culty of escape condition Proportion M no.a Proportion M no.a
Easy .18 1.09 .91 7.09
Diffi cult .64 4.00 .82 5.00
Note. n _ 11 in each condition.
a Mean number of shock trials (from 0 to 8) that subjects agreed to take for
Elaine (MSe. _ 9.70, df _ 40).
YES / C. Daniel Batson et al. 387
In the similar-victim conditions, however, where empathic emo tional
response to Elaine’s distress was expected to be relatively high and,
according
to the empathy–altruism hypothesis, the motivation to help should be at
least
in part altruistic, diffi culty of escape had no effect on subjects’ readiness to
help. Presumably, because their concern was to reduce Elaine’s distress
and not
just their own, they were very likely to help, even when escape was easy. .
..
Overall, the results of Experiment 1 seemed to conform closely to the
oneversusthree pattern that, according to Table 1, would be expected if increased
empathic emotion led to altruistic motivation; they did not con form to the
two-main-effect pattern that would be expected if increased empathy led to
egoistic motivation. Still, although Stotland (1969) and Krebs (1975) had
provided
rather strong evidence that a similarity manipulation like the one used
in Experiment 1 manipulated empathic emotion, the manipula tion was
indirect.
Therefore, a second experiment was conducted in which we sought to test
the empathy-altruism hypothesis by manipulating empathic emotion more
directly. . . .
General Discussion
As we noted at the outset, the hypothesis that empathic emotion produces
truly altruistic motivation contradicts the egoistic assumption of most, if not
all, current theories of motivation. Because egoism is a widely held and
basic
assumption, it is only prudent to require that the evidence supporting altru
ism
be strong before this hypothesis is accepted.
To the degree that the conceptual analysis and resulting predictions
presented
in Table 1 provide an adequate framework for an empirical test of truly
altruistic motivation, the two experiments reported here seem to make an
initial
step toward providing such evidence. . . .
It may be, then, too early to conclude that empathic emotion can lead to
altruistic motivation to help. But if future research produces the same
pattern
of results found in the experiments reported here, this conclusion, with all
its
theoretical and practical implications, would seem not only possible but
necessary.
For now, the research to date convinces us of the legitimacy of suggesting
that empathic motivation for helping may be truly altruistic. In doing so,
we are left far less confi dent than we were of reinterpretations of
apparently
altruistically motivated helping in terms of instrumental egoism.
Note
1. It is worth noting that another cost variable, the cost of helping, is
frequently
thought to be the key to altruism. If helping occurs when the cost
of helping is high (at the extreme, when the helper’s life is in danger), this
is thought to be evidence of altruistic motivation. A little refl ection shows
that such an inference is unfounded, for even highly costly helping could
easily be an instrumental egoistic response, motivated by a desire to avoid
guilt or to attain praise and honor either in this life or an anticipated life
to come.
388 ISSUE 17 / Does True Altruism Exist?
References
Aderman, D., & Berkowitz, L. Observational set, empathy, and helping.
Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology, 1970, 14, 141–148.
Aronfreed, J. M. The socialization of altruistic and sympathetic behavior:
Some
the oretical and experimental analyses. In J. Macaulay & L. Berkowitz
(Eds.),
Altru ism and helping behavior. New York: Academic Press, 1970.
Batson, C. D., & Coke, J. S. Empathy: A source of altruistic motivation for
helping.
In J. P. Rushton & R. M. Sorrentino (Eds.), Altruism and helping behavior.
Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum, 1981.
Batson, C. D., Darley, J. M., & Coke, J. S. Altruism and human kindness:
Internal
and external determinants of helping behavior. In L. Pervin & M. Lewis
(Eds.), Perspectives in interactional psychology. New York: Plenum Press,
1978.
Bolles, R. D. Theory of motivation (2nd ed.). New York: Harper &
Row,1975.
Coke, J. S., Batson, C. D., & McDavis, K. Empathic mediation of helping: A
twostage
model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1978, 36, 752–766.
Comte, I. A. System of positive polity (Vol. 1). London: Longmans, Green,
1875.
Harris, M. B., & Huang, L. C. Helping and the attribution process. Journal of
Social Psychology, 1973, 90, 291–297.
Hoffman, M. L. Developmental synthesis of affect and cognition and its
implications
for altruistic motivation. Developmental Psychology, 1975, 11, 607–622.
Hornstein, H. A. Cruelty and kindness: A new look at aggression and
altruism. Englewood
Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1976.
Krebs, D. L. Empathy and altruism. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology,
1975, 32, 1134–1146.
Mehrabian, A., & Epstein, N. A measure of emotional empathy. Journal of
Personality,
1972, 40, 525–543.
Piliavin, J. A., & Piliavin, L. M. The Good Samaritan: Why does he help?
Unpublished
manuscript, University of Wisconsin, 1973.
Stotland, E. Exploratory investigations of empathy. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.),
Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 3). New York: Academic
Press,
1969.
389
From Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 52, no. 4, April
1987, pp. 749–758. Copyright
© 1987 by American Psychological Association. Reprinted by permission
via Copyright
Clearance Center.
Empathy-Based Helping: Is It
Selfl essly or Selfi shly Motivated?
The existence of pure altruism among humans has been a topic of
longstanding
debate in both philosophical and general psychological circles (see,
e. g., Bentham, 1789/1879; Campbell, 1975; Comte, 1851/1875; Hoffman,
1981;
Hume, 1740/1896; McDougall, 1908). Recent attention to this issue within
social psychology has been stimulated by the contributions of Batson and
his
associates (Batson, 1984 ; Batson & Coke, 1981; Batson, Duncan,
Ackerman,
Buckley, & Birch, 1981; Batson, O’Quin, Fultz, Vanderplas, & Isen, 1983;
Coke,
Batson, & McDavis, 1978; Toi & Batson, 1982). The signifi cance of the
work
of these last authors lies in their presentation of an experimental method for
assessing the possibility of selfl essly motivated aid and in their
presentation
of systematic empirical support for the existence of such aid among
empathically
oriented subjects. If research continues to verify their data and conceptual
analysis, they will have provided the fi rst persuasive argument that we
are capable of truly selfl ess action. The implications for fundamental
characterizations
of human nature are considerable.
In constructing their experimental method, Batson and his colleagues
proposed that an observer of a suffering other is likely to react in one of two
primary ways to the victim’s plight: by reducing the other’s need through
helping
or by escaping the situation. The egotistically motivated observer would
be expected to choose the option entailing the smallest personal cost
(Piliavin,
Dovidio, Gaertner, & Clark, 1981). An altruistically motivated observer,
however, should be principally concerned with reducing the other’s
suffering.
Although the operations have changed from study to study, the basic
paradigm
of these researchers is as follows: Subjects are exposed to the plight of a
suffering victim under conditions of high or low empathy for the victim. The
subjects are next given the opportunity to aid the victim under conditions
that allow them easy or diffi cult escape from the helping situation. The
consequence
is a factorial design crossing two levels of the empathy fac tor (high vs.
low) with two levels of the escape factor (easy vs. diffi cult).
On the basis of the hypothesis that selfl essly motivated helping occurs
under conditions of high empathic concern for a victim, Batson and his
colleagues
predicted a three-versus-one pattern of helping within the design.
Robert B. Cialdini, Mark Schaller,
Donald Houlihan, Kevin Arps,
Jim Fultz, and Arthur L. Beaman
NO
390 ISSUE 17 / Does True Altruism Exist?
That is, they suggested that the factor of ease of escape from the helping
situa tion should play a role in a subject’s helping decision only when the
subject’s behavior is motivated by egoistic concerns. Thus, when subjects
are
not ori ented toward others (low empathy), they should help less when
escape
from helping is easy than when it is diffi cult. However, when empathy is
high,
ego istic concerns such as ease of escape are dwarfed by the subject’s
primarily
altruistic motive to relieve the victim’s suffering; highly empathic subjects,
then, should help at elevated levels whether escape from the helping
situation
is easy or diffi cult. This predicted pattern—that subjects in the lowempathy,
easy-escape condition will help less than subjects in the other three cells of
the design—has been borne out repeatedly in the previously cited studies
(e.g.,
Batson et al., 1981; Batson et al., 1983; Toi & Batson, 1982).
A critical piece of support for the selfl ess altruism explanation of this
data pattern has come from the elevated helping scores of subjects in the
high-empathy, easy-escape condition of the design. According to the selfl
ess
altru ism interpretation, the heightened benevolence of these subjects
occurs
because their empathic state motivates them to help the victim with little
regard for egoistic considerations (such as the ease of escape) that would
otherwise
reduce aid. Yet, there is at least one alternative interpretation that could
explain this fi nding in egoistic terms. That is, it may be that an empathic
ori entation causes individuals viewing a suffering victim to feel enhanced
sadness.
A substantial body of research exists to indicate that temporary states of
sadness or sorrow reliably increase helping in adults (for reviews see
Cialdini,
Kenrick, & Baumann, 1982, and Rosenhan, Karylowski, Salovey, & Hargis,
1981), especially when the sadness is caused by another’s plight
(Thompson,
Cowan, & Rosenhan, 1980). Moreover, the research of Cialdini and his
associates
has suggested that these saddened subjects help for egoistic reasons: to
relieve the sadness in themselves rather than to relieve the victim’s
suffering
(Baumann, Cialdini, & Kenrick, 1981; Cialdini, Darby, & Vincent, 1973;
Cialdini & Kenrick, 1976; Kenrick, Baumann, & Cialdini, 1979; Manucia,
Bau-mann, & Cialdini, 1984). Because helping contains a rewarding
component
for most normally socialized adults (Baumann et al., 1981; Harris, 1977;
Weiss, Buchanan, Alstatt, & Lombardo, 1971), it can be used
instrumentally
to restore mood.
Thus, it may be that in the typical experiment of Batson and his associates
the high-empathy procedures increased helping not for selfl ess reasons,
but for an entirely egoistic reason: personal mood management. It is
important
to recognize that the mood at issue is rather specifi c to the temporary state
of sadness or sorrow. Cialdini and his coworkers have argued (see Cialdini,
Baumann, & Kenrick, 1981) that their data on negative mood effects
implicate
only temporary sadness in the enhancement of helping, and they have
repeatedly
asserted that other negative moods that are normally not reduced through
benevolence (e.g., anger, frustration, agitation, anxiety) con sequently
would
not be expected to increase helping. This distinction among negative
moods
may help explain why, in the research of Batson and associ ates, an index
of
personal distress has not been systematically related to help ing among
highempathy
subjects. The adjectives making up this index (e.g., alarmed, disturbed,
NO / Robert B. Cialdini et al. 391
upset, worried) are agitation or anxiety based rather than sadness based.
Because
empathic concern, sadness, and distress all involve negative feelings, we
would
expect them to be strongly intercorrelated. At the same time, however, we
see
them as functionally distinct in their relation to helping.
A major implication of our analysis, then, is that empathy-induced helping
in the Batson et al. design is mediated by the increased sadness of
highempathy
subjects witnessing a suffering other and that the help is an egoistic
response designed to dispel the temporary depression. This interpretation
is
crucially different from that of Batson and his colleagues, in which empathy
is said to stimulate helping through a selfl ess concern for the welfare of
others.
To test these alternative explanations against one another, it would be
neces sary to separate subjects’ feelings of sadness from the empathic
orientation
that is said to bring about that sadness. Our fi rst experiment sought to
provide such a test by (a) replicating the basic Batson et al. empathy
procedures
for all subjects; (b) presenting some subjects with a gratifying event
(money or praise) designed to relieve any sadness that an empathic
orientation
may have produced, without simultaneously interfering with that
empathic orientation; (c) allowing subjects the opportunity to help a victim
or escape the situation; and (d) assessing whether subjects’ helping
tendencies
are related primarily to Batson’s measures of empathic concern or to
traditional
measures of sadness.
The experimental design, then, included a replication of the standard
four cells of the paradigm of Batson and his associates (two levels of
empathy
orientation and two levels of ease of escape). We also included additional
high-empathy orientation cells in which subjects received a gratifying event
(either money or praise) between the empathy manipulation and the
chance
to help. From our egoistic, sadness-based interpretation of helping in the
Batson
et al. paradigm, we made the following predictions. First, subjects in the
high-empathy conditions of the Batson et al. design would show (Prediction
la) greater empathic concern and (Prediction 1b) greater sadness than
would
those in the low-empathy conditions of that design. This pair of predictions,
if confi rmed, would establish the possibility that the helping pattern of
previous
Batson et al. studies was not caused by the action of empathic concern
but by the action of sadness. Second, high-empathy subjects who received
a
grati fying intervention would have their (Prediction 2a) greater sadness but
(Pre diction 2b) not their greater empathic concern canceled by the
gratifying
events. This pair of predictions, if confi rmed, would provide the basis for a
test
of whether empathic concern or sadness was functionally related to help
ing
in this design. Third, high-empathy subjects who did not receive a sadness
canceling intervention (i.e., those subjects expected to show the greatest
sadness)
would show greater helping than all other subjects (i.e., those subjects
in whom enhanced sadness was canceled or in whom enhanced sadness
had
not been experimentally induced). If confi rmed, this prediction (Prediction
3)
would support the idea that empathically oriented subjects in this study and
in the general Batson et al. paradigm help for a primarily egoistic reason
(i.e.,
personal mood management) rather than a primarily selfl ess reason (i.e.,
concern
for the other’s welfare).
392 ISSUE 17 / Does True Altruism Exist?
Experiment 1
Method
Subjects. Eighty-seven introductory psychology students at Arizona State
University participated in the study as partial fulfi llment of a course
requirement.
Six subjects were dropped from the analyses because they expressed
suspicion about the legitimacy of the need situation. These subjects were
distributed
approximately evenly across experimental conditions.
Procedure. With the exception of a different empathy manipulation and
several changes necessary for the inclusion of the rewards manipulation,
the
procedures of the study followed those of Batson et al. (1981, Experiment
1)
and Batson et al. (1983, Experiment 1). Only the manipulations and
important
changes are described in detail here.
All subjects were randomly assigned to conditions and run individually
by either a male or a female experimenter. On arrival, subjects read a short
introduction while waiting for the other subject, “Elaine,” to appear. They
read that one subject—the worker—would be performing a series of
learning
trials while receiving mild electric shocks, and the other—the observer—
would
watch her and form impressions. The instructions went on to say that
because
the study involved personal perceptions of others, it would be necessary to
have subjects take a short personality test as well. The subject then drew
lots to
determine whether she would be the worker or the observer. The drawing
was
rigged so the subject always drew the role of the observer. The experi
menter
then ushered the subject into an experimental room where she was told
she
would be watching the worker over closed-circuit television.
At this point, the subject was given the “Remington–Hughe Scale of Social
Abilities.” The experimenter stated that this was a previously validated
instrument
that was shown to measure social abilities very reliably. The test was
actually the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (Crowne & Mar
lowe,
1964). The experimenter left, announcing that she or he would check to
see if
the other subject had arrived yet.
Ease-of-escape manipulation. When subjects fi nished the scale, the
experimenter
returned and began telling them what they would be watching over the
closed-circuit television. At this time, the experimenter introduced the
escape
manipulation. Subjects in the easy-escape condition were told, “Although
the
worker will be completing between two and ten trials, it will be necessary
for
you to observe only the fi rst two.” Subjects in the diffi cult-escape condition
were told, “The worker will be completing between two and ten trials, all of
which you will observe.”
Empathy-set manipulation. Just before turning on the television monitor,
the experimenter presented subjects with written instructions on the
perspective
they should adopt while observing Elaine. These instructions were adapted
from those used in research by Batson and his colleagues (Fultz, Batson,
NO / Robert B. Cialdini et al. 393
Fortenbach, McCarthy, & Varney, 1986; Toi & Batson, 1982). The experi
menter
was blind to the empathy-set manipulation. Subjects in the low-empathy-set
condition read the following:
While you are observing the trials, try to pay careful attention to the
infor mation presented. Try to be as objective as possible, carefully
attending to all the information about the situation and about the person
performing the trials. Try not to concern yourself with how the
person performing the trials feels about what is happening. Just
concentrate
on trying to watch and listen objectively to the information
presented.
Subjects in the high-empathy-set condition read the following:
While you are observing the trials, try to imagine how the person
perform ing them feels. Try to take the perspective of the person
performing
the tri als, imagining how she feels and how it is affecting her.
Try not to concern yourself with all of the information presented. Just
try to imagine how the person performing the trials is feeling.
The videotape showed Elaine reacting more and more strongly to the
shocks presented to her during the learning trials. Toward the end of the
second
trial, the assistant stopped the procedure and asked Elaine if she was
all right. Elaine responded that she was, but would like a glass of water.
The
assis tant agreed and left. During this break, the experimenter returned to
the
experimental room, turned off the television monitor and announced that as
long as there was this break, they could do some things they would have to
do
anyway during the experiment.
Reward manipulation. To subjects in the high-empathy/money condition
the experimenter said, “First of all, we were awarded some additional
funding
for this experiment to pay subjects, so everyone who participates gets
one dol lar.” The experimenter gave the subject a $1 bill and then
presented
two short questionnaires to till out: a mood questionnaire and an
emotionalreactions
questionnaire. To subjects in the high-empathy/praise condition,
the experi menter said that he or she had just scored the subject’s
responses
on the Remington-Hughe scale and noted that the subject had scored a 26,
indicating a high level of social ability. The subject was shown a brief
explanation
of her score:
People scoring in this category have fi ne social abilities. They are normally
liked by their peers, who enjoy spending time with them. This is
so par tially because people scoring in this category tend to be interesting
and versatile conversationalists who can contribute intelligently
on a fairly wide range of topics. They also bring a creative fl are to the
social situa tions they fi nd enjoyable. Finally, they are known for their
capacity for rec ognizing which of their friends and acquaintances will
get along together.
394 ISSUE 17 / Does True Altruism Exist?
After reading this false feedback, subjects were given the two
questionnaires to
fi ll out. In the high-empathy/no-rewards condition and the low-empathy
condition,
the experimenter simply presented subjects with the two questionnaires.
Mood and emotional-reactions questionnaires. The order of the two
questionnaires
was counterbalanced across subjects. The mood questionnaire consisted
of nine 7-point bipolar scales. On the fi rst of these scales subjects were
asked to rate how much happier or sadder they were relative to how they
felt
before the experimental session. On the other eight scales subjects were
asked to
rate how they presently felt. The poles of these eight scales were
depressed– elated,
happy–sad, hopeful–hopeless, active–passive, good–bad, exhilarated–
dejected, useless–
useful, and satisfi ed–dissatisfi ed. The emotional-reactions questionnaire
was an
abridged form of the list of 28 adjectives used in previ ous research (Batson
et al,
1981, Experiment 2; Batson et al., 1983) and con sisted of the 20
adjectives Batson
and Coke (1981) found to load highly on either an empathic-concern factor
(e.g.,
moved, compassionate, sympathetic) or a personal distress factor (e.g.,
alarmed,
upset, worried). Subjects were asked to rate on 7-point scales the extent to
which
they were presently experiencing each of the emotions.
When the subject had fi nished fi lling out the questionnaires, the
experimenter
returned, announced that Elaine was about ready to start again, turned
on the monitor, and left. Subjects saw the assistant ask Elaine about her
strong
reaction to the shocks and Elaine hesitantly replied that she had pre viously
experienced problems with electric shock. The assistant suggested she not
continue.
Elaine resisted until the assistant suggested that perhaps the other
subject—
the observer—might be willing to help her out by trading places. Elaine
acquiesced, the assistant left, and the screen went blank.
Dependent measure: Helping Elaine. After about half a minute, the
experimenter
returned to the experimental room and began explaining to the sub ject
what her options were, following verbatim the script used by Batson et al.
(1981;
1983, Experiment 1). During this discourse, the experimenter reiterated the
subject’s
escape condition: In the easy-escape condition, subjects were reminded
that if they chose not to trade places they would be free to go; in the diffi
cultescape
condition subjects were reminded that if they chose not to trade places
they would have to remain and continue to watch Elaine perform the trials.
Subjects
were asked what they would like to do. If they volunteered to take Elaine’s
place, they were asked how many of the remaining trials they would like to
do,
as Elaine had agreed to do any of the remaining eight that the subject did
not.
The dependent measure was the number of trials subjects chose to do.
Debriefi ng. The experimenter left briefl y to note the subject’s helping
response and then returned and presented the subject with a brief
questionnaire
to assess subjects’ suspicions about the procedures. This questionnaire
asked subjects to describe what they thought the hypothesis of the
experiment
was and to note if they had entertained any doubts about any aspects of
the
procedures. After responding to these questions, subjects were verbally
probed
for suspicion and then fully debriefed.
NO / Robert B. Cialdini et al. 395
Results
Reported empathic concern and distress. To measure empathic
concern,
three adjectives from the emotional-response questionnaire were averaged
to
comprise an empathy index: compassionate, moved, and sympathetic (
Cronbach’s
alpha _ .60). These adjectives were selected to be consistent with those
currently
refi ned for use by Batson and his colleagues (e.g., Batson et al., 1983). To
measure
personal distress, fi ve other adjectives from the same ques tionnaire were
similarly
selected: alarmed, worried, upset, disturbed, and grieved (Cronbach’s
alpha _
.89). Two subjects were dropped from the analyses on reported empathy,
and
three were dropped from the analyses on reported distress because they
did not
respond to all the items on the appropriate index.
Two of the predictions of this experiment involved subjects’ reported
empathy scores. The fi rst (la) stated that in the four replication cells of the
Batson
et al. paradigm, high-empathy-set subjects would report more empathic
concern than would low-empathy-set subjects, replicating the prior Batson
et
al. results. This was the case, as the two high-empathy-set/no-reward cells
(M _
5.40) showed greater empathic concern than did the two low-empathy-set/
no-reward cells (M _ 4.63), F(1, 71) _ 4.10, p _ .05. The second
empathyrelated
prediction (2b) suggested that the reward interventions of the current
design would not interfere with the heightened empathic concern produced
in
the high-empathy-set conditions. Therefore, it was expected that the
empathy
index scores in the four high-empathy-set cells with a reward intervention
(M
_ 5.10) would not differ from the two such cells without a reward interven
tion
(M _ 5.40) This prediction was also supported, F(1, 71) _ 1. . . .
Reported sadness. It was suggested that an empathic orientation toward
a suffering
other may depress one’s mood, leading to a state of temporary sad ness or
sorrow. Three of the 7-point scales on the mood questionnaire were
relevant to
this type of affect. On the fi rst, subjects rated how much happier or sadder
they
felt relative to their mood before the experiment. On the other two, subjects
rated
their present mood on bipolar scales of elated–depressed and happy–sad.
Responses
on these three scales were averaged for each subject to form an overall
index of
mood (lower numbers indicating sadder mood). Not surprisingly, this
resulting
mood index was correlated with both the empathy index (r _ _.44) and the
distress
index (r _ –.49). The relation to empathy is clearly predicted by the
Negative
State Relief model; the relation to distress is not formally a part of the
model but
is to be expected, as both measure a neg ative emotion and both are
related to
empathy. Apparently because of a con fusing placement in the mood
questionnaire,
12 subjects failed to respond to the scale assessing relative change in
mood,
and these subjects were therefore dropped from the mood analyses.
A pair of experimental hypotheses directly involved the mood measure.
The fi rst (1b) predicted that within the four replication conditions (i.e., the
no-reward cells of the present design), high-empathy-set subjects would
show
greater sadness than would low-empathy-set subjects. This prediction was
confi
rmed, F(1, 61) _ 5.73, p _ .02 (Ms _ 2.63 and 3.47, respectively). This
outcome
supports the contention that empathically oriented subjects experience
396 ISSUE 17 / Does True Altruism Exist?
a saddened mood when observing a suffering other. The second moodrelated
experimental prediction (2a) stated that the greater sadness of highempathy
set subjects would be canceled through the presentation of an unexpected
reward such as money or praise. This prediction was tested by a set of
contrasts
show ing that the high-empathy-set subjects who received a reward
(M _ 3.25) were equivalent in mood to the low-empathy-set subjects (M _
3.47), F(1, 61) _ 1, and were less sad than the high-empathy-set subjects
who
had not received a reward (M _ 2.63), F(1, 61) _ 3.81, p _ .06. Combined
with
the outcomes of the earlier analyses, these results support the argument
that
rewards such as those of this study will cancel the saddened mood but not
the
empathic orientation of subjects empathizing with a suffering other.
Helping. The nature of the dependent variable allows for two, different
helping
measures: a continuous measure based on the number of learning tri als
for which subjects volunteered in taking Elaine’s place, and a dichotomous
measure based on the proportion of subjects in each condition who chose
to
help Elaine. Table 1 presents results on both measures. The analyses
reported
here are on the continuous measure. Parallel analyses were performed on
the
dichotomous measure, which yielded results consistent with those reported
but short of conventional levels of signifi cance.
Table 1
Experiment 1: Mean Scores on Empathic Concern, Mood,
and Helping Measures
High-empathy set
Lowempathy
set
Ease of escape Money Praise No reward No reward
Easy
Empathic concern 4.29 5.23 4.90 4.84
Mood 3.61 3.10 2.50 3.42
Helping 1.71 (29) 2.27 (45) 3.60 (50) 1.75 (33)
n 7 11 10 12
Diffi cult
Empathic concern 5.24 5.41 5.85 4.40
Mood 3.40 2.92 2.73 3.52
Helping 1.82 (36) 4.00 (56) 4.73 (73) 2.60 (40)
n 11 9 11 10
Note. For the mood measure, lower scores represent more depressed
mood; for the other measures, high scores
indicate more of the quality. For the helping measure, proportions of
helpers are presented in parentheses.
NO / Robert B. Cialdini et al. 397
In keeping with our predictions, a pair of planned contrasts was performed.
First, the helping scores of the high-empathy set subjects who did
not receive a reward intervention (M _ 4.19) were contrasted with the
helping
scores of the subjects in the other cells of the design (i.e., those subjects in
whom enhanced sadness had been canceled or had not been
experimentally
induced; M _ 2.34). This contrast proved signifi cant, F(1, 73) _ 4.09, p <
.05.
Second, the helping scores of the high-empathy-set subjects who received
a
reward intervention (M _ 2.45) were tested against those of the lowempathyset
subjects (M _ 2.14) and, as predicted, were found to be no different,
F(1, 73) _ 1. An additional contrast, somewhat redundant with the two
reported
above, showed that the difference in helping between high- empathy-set/
reward and high-empathy-set/no-reward subjects was marginally signifi
cant,
F(1, 73) _ 3.19, p _ .08.
Besides the tests of the experimental prediction regarding the helping
measure, an additional analysis was conducted to determine whether the
basic
one-versus-three pattern of the Batson et al. paradigm showed the form of
the
traditional pattern, in that the easy-escape/low-empathy-set subjects
helped
the least (M _ 1.75) compared with subjects in the other three no-reward
conditions
(combined M _ 3.68), F(1, 73) _ 2.53, p _.12. Although this difference
is not conventionally signifi cant, it would appear to be suffi cient for the
purpose
of replication. The failure of this analysis to reach conventional signifi cance is in large part a function of the unexpectedly low level of helping in
the low-empathy-set/diffi cult-escape cell. Fortunately, helping scores in
that
particular cell hold relatively minor theoretical weight in our argument. . . .
Discussion
In this study we sought to provide data to help to explain the frequently
demonstrated
tendency for empathically oriented individuals to be more helpful
toward a needy other (Eisenberg & Miller, 1987). The empathic–altruism
model
of Batson and associates, which views empathically concerned individ uals
as
primarily selfl ess in their approach to helping, was examined relative to the
Negative State Relief model of Cialdini and associates, which posits the
egoistic
desire to manage personal sadness as a primary cause of helping in such
individuals.
To pose a proper test of these conceptually opposed models of helping,
we considered it necessary to demonstrate several effects within the
Batson et al.
empathy–altruism paradigm: fi rst, that empathic orientation toward a
sufferer
not only increased a person’s empathic concern but also that person’s
sadness
and, second, that the receipt of a gratifying event (money or praise) would
serve
to reduce the increased sadness but not the increased empathic concern.
The
results of the study supported both of these sets of conditions. Relevant
highempathyset subjects reported greater empathic con cern and sadness than did
low-empathy-set subjects; furthermore, the receipt of a rewarding event by
highempathyset subjects relieved their sadness but not their empathic concern. With
these two sets of conditions in place, it was then possible to examine
whether
helping was related to manipulated levels of sadness or empathic concern.
It was
found that high-empathy-set subjects did show elevated helping scores,
except
398 ISSUE 17 / Does True Altruism Exist?
when they had received a sadness-canceling reward, whereupon they were
no
more helpful than low-empathy-set subjects. Therefore, it appeared to be
personal
sadness rather than empathic concern that accounted for the increased
helping motivation of our empathically ori ented subjects. . . .
Conclusion
The nature of benevolent motivation has been a long-standing issue of
philosophical
and psychological inquiry. Recently, psychologists have examined
the role of empathy in the generation of and explanation of such motivation
(see Eisenberg & Miller, 1987, and Hoffman, 1981, for reviews). An
impressive
and important body of research by Batson and his associates has
repeatedly
pro vided evidence for the selfl ess mediation of helping under conditions of
heightened empathy for a needy other. The two studies reported here offer
a reinterpretation of that evidence by associating increased personal
sadness
with such empathy and by supporting the egoistic motive of sadness reduc
tion
as the mediator of this form of helping. We recognize fully that no mere pair
of experiments is capable of resolving so fundamental a question as the
motivational
nature of benevolence; accordingly, we do not see our studies in such
light. Instead, we view them as providing a plausible egoistic explanation
for
the fi rst powerful experimental evidence for pure altruism.
References
Batson, C. D., & Coke, J. S. (1981). Empathy: A source of altruistic
motivation
for helping? In J. P. Rushton & R. M. Sorrentino (Eds.), Altruism and
helping
behav ior: Social, personality, and developmental perspectives (pp. 167–
187). Hillsdale,
NJ: Erlbaum.
Baumann, D. J., Cialdini, R. B., & Kenrick, D. T. (1981). Altruism as
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399
CHALLENGE QUESTIONS
Does True Altruism Exist?
1. Do you think it is possible for research to distinguish between selfi sh
motivations for helping and truly altruistic motivations?
2. Try to think of a time when you gave assistance to someone in need.
Do you think that your behavior was altruistic, or can you think of
egoistic reasons why you may have helped? Explain.
3. Can you think of any practical applications for the research examining
helping behavior? How might the results of this research be used
to promote helping behavior in the real world?
400